East of Scotland preview: East Lothian derby clash the game of the day on international weekend

New Countess Park hosts today's East Lothian derby meeting

Dunbar United and Haddington Athletic meet in an East Lothian derby clash today for the first time in a league encounter since the 2017/18 season.

Both clubs are flying high in the top tier of the East of Scotland league set-up with dreams of moving on up in Scotland’s pyramid.

Dunbar followed in Haddington’s footsteps last season securing promotion from the First Division as champions after Scott Bonar’s HI-Hi lifted the league title the season previously.

Seasiders assistant boss Andy Donlevy takes charge of Dunbar for today’s encounter at New Countess Park alongside first-team coach Gary Small, with manager Kevin Haynes on holiday, and he senses a big occasion.

“It’s one that we are really looking forward to, I think it will be the first league game between the two clubs since the last season we were both in the Juniors,” said Donlevy.

“It’s going to be a good game, it looks like the weather is going to be fantastic and with it being international weekend there should be a brilliant crowd. Both clubs have started the league relatively well, particularly Haddington, so it has all the makings of a big game.

“Considering we have just been promoted, I think if you said to us before the season started that we would have 12 points after seven games, we would probably be relatively happy. We maybe surprised a few teams and the wider football community with how we started in the first three games, winning comfortably against Dundonald and Sauchie, and then beating Hill of Beath away.

“We’ve huffed and puffed recently, losing our last two league games 2-1 away to Inverkeithing and 3-2 at home to Glenrothes on Tuesday there. We’re disappointed, we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we can. Looking at the bigger picture, we had the opportunity to win both of those games, so it’s not all doom and gloom. We are playing in a better league this year, so we are still pretty happy with the start we’ve had.”

Scoring more goals was an area Dunbar wanted to improve on throughout last season. Despite ending the campaign top of the table, they scored less goals than the next eight clubs who finished below them.

Striker Taylor Hendry has been recruited to aid on that front, and the ex-Penicuik Athletic frontman has done his bit so far with eight goals in all competitions.

Donlevy continued: “Taylor has been brilliant since he’s came in. He’s really added quality upfront scoring some good goals. We’ve known about Taylor for a good few years and that was an area we wanted to add to in the summer, he was a player that we identified. He’s good pals with James Redpath in our team so that helped with bringing him in; he knew a lot about the club before deciding he wanted to come.”

Elsewhere in the Premier Division, fourth placed Musselburgh Athletic host Penicuik at Olivebank, while league leaders Broxburn Athletic are away to Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts as they look to maintain their unbeaten start. Tynecastle host Hutchison Vale in a repeat of last Saturday’s Scottish Cup match with the hosts looking for revenge after being dumped out the cup by Ryan Harding’s side.